The Downtown Business Improvement Association in Lindsay is aiming to tackle those abusing downtown parking.
It has been two years since the City of Kawartha Lakes removed parking meters from Lindsay’s downtown area and allowed limited free parking instead.
But the DBIA says that while the change has increased business traffic in the area, many drivers are ignoring the two-hour time limit for parking.
“If there are people that are going to park all day, those are the people we have to educate to get them moving and find other spots to park,” said DBIA chairman Charlie McDonald.
The DBIA is in the middle of a two-year pilot project aimed at keeping traffic moving by focusing on people abusing the system. McDonald notes the city has an enforcement officer but he’s not always in the area.
Mayor Andy Letham agrees.
“We had a higher level of enforcement when there were meters downtown and we were generating revenue from those meters so when we took them out the level of enforcement was lowered a little bit,” said Letham. “And the BIA wants to find that happy medium so that we can keep everybody happy and try to control the parking downtown.”
The city provided the BIA with $20,000 for its project which wraps up at the end of 2018. The data will be evaluated and a decision will be made on the future of parking.
“Our downtown is very vibrant right now,” said McDonald. “We only have two places that just came up for lease in the last couple of weeks so we are full… meaning people are really loving it here. So we’d like to make it a nice experience meaning they don’t pay for parking and there’s a parking spot for them when they come downtown.”
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